Vouchers are a creationist's best friend: James Gill

The Louisiana Science Education Act was a significant victory for the creationists, but with the advent of school vouchers, it now looks like small beer. The act allowed teachers to sneak Bible literalism into science class, to muddy the waters with "supplemental materials" but not to deny evolution flat-out. The U.S. Constitution would not allow public schools to be transformed into Christian missions. When the act was passed in 2008, it seemed that legislators had done all they could to keep Louisiana stupid.

BRETT DUKE / THE TIMES-PICAYUNELouisiana Governor Bobby Jindal addresses the combined House and Senate in 2010.

O, ye of little faith! The great day is dawning when taxpayers pick up the tab for kids to learn that Darwin leads to eternal damnation. Vouchers have turned out to be the answer to a creationist's prayer.

Young Zack Kopplin, son of Mayor Mitch Landrieu's CAO Andy, has for the last couple of years been our voice of reason, spearheading a campaign for repeal of the Science Education Act. His efforts have won the support of 78 Nobel laureates, but it's no use getting smart with Louisiana legislators. This year's repeal bill got one vote in committee, and that was an improvement.

Now Zack Kopplin has been examining the list of private schools allocated slots under Louisiana's new voucher program. He reports that the state proposes to send 1,306 students, at an annual cost of more than $11 million, to 19 religious schools that repudiate evolution and go hook, line and sinker for Genesis. These are just the ones accepted for the voucher that advertise their agenda. Others, more discreet, are no doubt also out there.

Where religion ends and superstition takes over is not always easy to determine, but these 19 institutions are way over the line. Even the Vatican, which has no trouble authenticating miracles, defers to scientific principle on this issue.

To disregard the mountains of evidence that underpin the theory of natural selection may be regarded in some quarters as a service to faith, but the taxpayer's education dollar is not supposed to promote ignorance. We are paying good money to deny our kids the grounding they need to make sense of science.

Vouchers are supposed to rescue students from underperforming public schools and give them access to superior instruction. That will not always happen, it being the height of naivete to assume that private schools are necessarily better. But, thanks to Zack Kopplin, we know for certain that at least 19 of the schools receiving a public subsidy will deliver precisely the opposite of the advertised effect. Their graduates will be treated by employers and college administrators as pariahs.

That vouchers have led to this is hardly surprising. They are Gov. Bobby Jindal's educational panacea, and he has always supported creationism. For him the Science Education Act was evidently no more than a step in the right direction.

Since Jindal has an Ivy League biology degree, there has been a suspicion that his support for creationism was fake, a ploy to curry favor with our legion fundamentalist voters. But it is beginning to appear that he really means it.

It is impossible to prepare fully for such a massive reform as going voucher, and some undeserving private schools are bound to receive an OK from harried state officials. But a religious takeover on this scale cannot be accidental. Of the schools on Zack Kopplin's list, one believes that scientists are "sinful men," and declares its view "on the age of the earth and other issues is that any theory that goes against God's word is in error." Another avers that evolution is "extremely damaging to children individually and to society as a whole." A third tells students to write an essay explaining how "the complexity of a cell shows it must be purposefully designed." And so it goes.

It was difficult to gainsay Jindal when he declared Louisiana had a moral obligation to provide its children with a better education. Any reform, it appeared, would be an improvement, and vouchers had the added appeal of giving underprivileged parents an unprecedented opportunity to choose where to send their children. Perhaps vouchers will give some children a better chance. But others will just have to pray.